


The Resolution

by rotrude



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ficlet, First Kiss, M/M, New Year's Eve, Resolution, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 14:11:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3071081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotrude/pseuds/rotrude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin has one of those pesky new year resolutions. Though he has a history of failing at those, this time he really means to try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Resolution

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Camelittle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camelittle/gifts).



> Written for Camelittle's prompt: resolution

Merlin had made many new year resolutions over the years. He'd stop being so all over the place, busy with three tasks at once and never concentrating satisfactorily on any one in particular. He'd take up Yoga so he'd acquire that inner peace his mum and Gaius said he needed to achieve his objectives. And he'd make enough money to get out of his Lilliputian, overcrowded flat and rent one he really liked.

He'd never done any of that. Merlin was still the kind of bloke who put his heart in a thousand different projects at once. He still hadn't gone and subscribed to a Yoga class, even if the gym round the corner had started courses. And he was as broke now as he'd been when uni spat him out two years ago.

But there was one new year resolution he'd manage to stick to. Tonight he'd tell Arthur how he felt about him. He'd stop bottling it all up and he'd make one clean breast of it. And perhaps it'd be a great disaster, and Arthur would turn flatly down, but the again at least Arthur would know what was weighing so heavily on Merlin heart. He'd finally realise that Merlin had been mad about him for years. And then Merlin could breathe more freely. And if things went really great, he'd get a boyfriend in the new year. Or maybe not and that was inordinately wishful thinking.

Either way Merlin meant to keep his new year resolution this time, was utterly determined to. Watch him do it.

 

**** 

Arthur balled up the shirt he'd just tried and put on another one.

“Arthur, can I borrow your--” Gwaine stopped in his tracks and gaped at the clothes strewn all over the floor. “What's happened here, a tornado swept by?”

Arthur clenched his jaw. What he didn't need today of all days was more of Gwaine habitual, know-it-all sniping. “Obviously that's not the case.”

“Or you're having trouble deciding what to wear for Leon's New Year's Party. Yeah.” Gwaine nodded. “That's looks more like it.”

“Clothes are not fitting.” Though he didn't want Gwaine to think he'd put on weight, because he most certainly hadn't, Arthur didn't know what else to say. The truth was too mortifying. “That's all.”

“Nah, that's not it,” Gwaine said, tapping his lip thoughtfully, then he beamed, an unholy light shining in his eyes. “I've got it. You're trying to impress someone. That's what this is all about.”

“That's patently ridiculous.”

“Agreed, but I still think that's what it's all about.”

“And I think you're an idiot,” Arthur said, shucking another shirt.

“Far be it from me to deprive of your comfort blanket lies,” Gwaine said, picking his way back to the door while he made free with Arthur's eau de parfum. “By the way Merlin will love the black one.”

Arthur lobbed a pair of socks at Gwaine's back. It hit him on the nape.

 

***** 

The music stopped. Leon picked up the champagne bottle that had been sitting on the dresser for the past few hours and said, “Thirty seconds to midnight, people.”

Merlin looked for Arthur. He was standing by the window, deep in conversation with Freya.

Merlin's shoulders slumped. He couldn't... He couldn't possibly interrupt. He'd have to postpone his plans.

Leon fiddled with the bottle's cork. “Twenty seconds!”

On the other hand if he didn't, he would have failed once again to keep the promise he'd made himself. 

“Fifteen seconds.”

Taking a deep breath, Merlin stalked across the room, elbowing and squeezing past other people so that he could get to Arthur before the stroke of midnight.

“Ten.”

Merlin slinked between a dancing couple and leapt over the coffee table.

“Five, three, two.”

Merlin grabbed Arthur by the shoulder, turned him around, cradled his face and kissed him square on the lips. It was the most delicious moment in all the known universe. Merlin's kneesnearly gave, he buzzed with excitement and his heart was thumping so wildly they put the fireworks exploding in the sky to shame.

To Merlin's utter delight, Arthur returned his kiss, deepened it and said, “If you hadn't done that, I don't know how long it'd taken me to ask you out.”

Merlin breathed because his oxygen needed brain to compute, then he smiled a big, possibly moronic looking smile and said, “New Year Resolution.”


End file.
